Journey to the Virtual World

vRealize Operations for Horizon View 6.2 upgrade

On 8 Dec, the Horizon team released an updated version of vRealize Operations for Horizon. I’ve worked with customers a few times on this product, and it certainly helps both the Horizon admin (EUC team) and vSphere admin (Platform team) to collaborate. That last one is important. Horizon is tied to vSphere, that you cannot manage it without having end to end visibility into the platform.

There are many articles on a fresh installation, so I will cover upgrade here. Please read the Upgrade section of the Release Notes, as there are things to know. After that, read the Upgrade section of the manual.

Prerequisite

Other than what the manual say, take note of the following:

Admin Access to Horizon View Connection Server.

Root access to vRealize Operations SuSE console. You will either need to enable SSH, or have VM Console access in vCenter.

Snapshot access to vCenter. You should take a snapshot before making any changes. You need to snapshot View Connection Server and vRealize Ops.

Step 1: Stop the Broker Agent services

Go to Horizon View Connection Server, and manually stop the service. You have to click it 2x, as it would go from Running to Stop Pending first.

Step 2: Update the solution

Other bloggers have provided good write up, so review this or this for a step by step instruction. I am not going to uninstall existing version since the manual implies that we install on top of existing instance. Also, if you uninstall, you will lose all your customisation and metrics.

To install on top of existing instance, you need to tick the 2 checkboxes, as shown below.

When you do that, you got a warning that it will replace existing changes. This is why I normally clone them, and leave the original intact. For example, if it is an alert, I’d also disable the original alert so I’m not double alerted.

Continue with the installation.

When it’s completed, the old solution is replaced. You can tell that the new build number is now shown.

The manual said to reboot. I’d wait until I modify the firewall port so it’s done together.

Next. Configure licensing information for the vRealize Operations for Horizon solution. Notice that there are 2 license keys required. One for vRealize, one for the Horizon solution. I think this step is actually optional, as you’ve got the existing license configured already.

Step 2: Update firewall ports

The firewall ports changed. You need to enable the port numbers 3099, 3100, and 3101.

Login as root (the user Admin cannot login anyway)

Edit the /opt/vmware/etc/vmware-vcops-firewall.conf file .

Add the line: TCPPORTS=”$TCPPORTS 3099:3101″ after TCPPORTS=”$TCPPORTS 3091:3095″ . See below for example

Either do the next 2 steps, or just rebooted the VM. As the manual said it needs a reboot after the Solution was installed, I rebooted. It’s easier than typing all these long commands 🙂

Restart the firewall: /etc/init.d/vmware-vcops-firewall restart

Check the status of the firewall: /etc/init.d/vmware-vcops-firewall status

Step 3: Modify TLS

TLS 1.2 is enforced by default in version 6.2. The Adapter cannot communicate with older desktop Agents running with TLS 1.0, which is used in 6.1. Bin Guo from R&D advised me that you don’t need to upgrade them if you continue to use the TLS 1.0. But you must enable TLS1.0 settings on adapter configuration. To do that, add the enforcesslprotocols = false line in the screenshot below to the /usr/lib/vmware-vcops/user/plugins/inbound/V4V_adapter3/work/msgserver.propertiesfile

Horizon Adapter in View Connection Server has to be restarted.

If you want to use TLS 1.2, you can upgrade the desktop agent independently, or update the whole Horizon View to 6.2.1 (View 6.2.1 disable TLS 1.0 too)

Broker Agent and Horizon Adapter instance pairing might be required.

Step 4: Update the Broker Agent

After the solution is licensed, you must install and configure the new version of broker agent. If you are not familiar, follow this or this for step by step. BTW, you only install it on 1 View CS if you have pairs, not all members. Also, do not install in View Security Server. This is stated in the manual.

If your broker agent is 6.1, you do not have to uninstall. If you are using older version, uninstall it. The 6.2 Broker Agent now requires MS .Net 4.5. It will stop if you do not have one.

During the Broker Agent upgrade process, this is what happened:

Broker agent 6.1 service is stopped

Its configuration is preserved. This includes data such as Horizon Credentials and Events DB configurations. Nice! No need to re-enter all those passwords

Broker agent 6.1 is uninstalled

Broker Agent 6.2 is installed.

The 6.2 sports a different UI, but the information that it asks is the same. Take note the version number (6.2.0) and build number. The first stage is to re-pair the adapters. This would fail if you did not add the firewall ports earlier.

In case of upgrade, the Broker Agent service is not started automatically. You need to click the Start button above.

And that’s all you need. If you need to troubleshoot, you can get the log of …..

the Broker Agent at C:/ProgramData/VMware/vCenter Operations for View/logs